We started the evening slowly by walking to the concert hall. We arrived 40 minutes before the doors were to open.

The show started on time and the lights were dimmed down. TWILIGHT FORCE, a newly established Power Metal band, was the opening the gig. The band was dressed as if they came right out of The Lord Of The Rings. It’s always nice to see a band that has a concentrated onstage wear. The band was formed in early 2011 and very recently released their second full length album Heroes Of Mighty Magic via Nuclear Blast. These guys surely know how to make a big entrance. Power Metal is sadly an underrated genre.

Swedish band Twilight Force proved to be something quite different, with blistering guitar solos and an insane amount of fast drumming. The songs were done to perfection, a really good stage presence and most of all a surprisingly good band. The group set the standard for the night. Twilight Force, inspired by Stratovarius and Rhapsody, showed that they have the potential to become one of the big names in Power Metal. I think it’s safe to say that Ronnie James Dio would have been very pleased with them. After a short break to give you just about time to wander off to the merch stand, ACCEPT enters the stage.

Accept, formed in the 1970s in Germany, is well known as the pioneers of Heavy Metal. Accept is a great live band, no doubt about it. I miss their earlier singer Udo Dirkschneider fronting the band, but I must admit that the new singer Mark Tornillo does a good job filling in the shoes for Dirkschneider. My impression is that the set list was taken out of their old and new materials. With the audience consisting of people from the ages of 15 up to 70, for a band like Accept that has been around for a while and the elderly fans felt more connected. The top hits for the night were two classic tunes, Fast As A Shark and Balls To The Walls. SABATON was the band everyone had been waiting for. The intro to the song Ghost Division began as the band is about to enter the stage.

While watching Sabaton, you already know what exactly what you’ll get. For the real fans of Sabaton, truly are the greatest. And they usually have a big stage show with pyros and loads of light. There were so many things going on the stage, that I found it hard to really focus on the actual songs, even though it looked beautiful. The set list for the night was as always the same as you’d expect from a Sabaton show. Some older and some new songs. You have a feeling that you have seen and heard it all before. Sabaton is one of those bands that you either love or hate. In my opinion, Sabaton needs to come up with something new to keep their position as one of the leading bands. The crowd as a whole seemed to enjoy them and sing along to their songs. To sum it up, the band TWILIGHT FORCE was the only band, I felt with some sort of desire to see more. ACCEPT was good and tight but it was not the best set list. They should have been given more time. SABATON is just like always good but not great.